McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)
Commentary by Jon Roland
The holding in this case continues undoing the damage done by the holding in
Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), begun by the holding in Brown v.
Socialist Workers', 459 U.S. 87 (1982). Buckley struck down the limits on
campaign spending, but upheld the limits on contributions and requirements
for disclosure of contributors and expenditures, and therefore forbade
anonymous contributors, for electoral campaign organizations. It left open a
defense against disclosure requirements for organizations that could provide
evidence of official or private repression of disclosed supporters, which
was exploited in Brown to yield a holding that such organizations were
exempt from campaign disclosure requirements.
The holding in McIntyre was that a person or organization has a First
Amendment right to anonymously publish in support of or opposition to
legislation or a candidate. Carried to its logical conclusion, this would
reverse all the components of federal campaign legislation sustained by
Buckley, including all the disclosure requirements and contribution limits.
What is perhaps most interesting about this decision is how the Supreme
Court justices dance around the logical implications and avoid following the
chain of logic. The only two justices that confront this logic are Justice
Thomas, who sets forth the logic without actually stating the obvious
conclusion, and Justice Scalia, who rejects the conclusion, and therefore
rejects compliance with original understanding of the Constitution.
It makes one wonder what it would take to get the justices to simply pursue
every case to its logical conclusion, and render sweeping holdings that
would end or prevent all the cases, and all the injustice they represent,
that result from their failure to do so.